When Not Winning Makes You Realise You’d Already Won

Last week I found myself in a hotel conference room in Cardiff, heart pounding, fingers crossed under the table, waiting for a stranger with a microphone to say our names.

Our Express Yourself project, using dance and theatre as an alternative way to support communication and connection for adults with neurological conditions, had been shortlisted for an Advancing Healthcare Awards Cymru 2025. Out of around 100 entries across all categories, we’d somehow found ourselves in the final three for Excellence in Rehabilitation.

In that moment, as they came to our category, it felt simple: winning would mean we’d done something important. Winning would mean recognition. Winning would mean Powys, and our patients, on the map.

Spoiler: they didn’t say our names. We didn’t win.

Then comes that strange, slightly awkward moment where you clap for someone else, your heart slows down again, and you find yourself doing quiet mental gymnastics. Why didn’t we win? Could we have done more? Was it not good enough? Were we not good enough?

And of course, out rolls the phrase we all pretend to love but secretly grit our teeth at: “Well, we’re all winners really.” Usually I manage a polite half-smile when people say that, knowing how competitive I can be. But this time, the combination of the ceremony, the stories in the room, and the very long, very wet drive home over the Brecon Beacons in Storm Claudia kind of forced me into proper reflection. And honestly? On this occasion, for this project, in that room, it was actually true.

We really were all winners.

Everyone there had done something similar. We’d all stepped beyond our norm. Beyond the regular. Beyond the “this is how we usually do it.” Everyone in that room had taken what they knew to be true about care, recovery, people, and found new, creative, alternative ways to deliver it. We’d all been forced to ask, “What if this doesn’t work anymore? What else could we try?” That’s what Express Yourself was, at its heart: a different way.

On that windswept drive home, as the car was pushed around by Storm Claudia, I found myself circling a new set of questions. What actually makes a project successful? What makes it a “winner”? Would winning the award have been brilliant? Of course. The spotlight on Powys, the recognition for our participants and partners, the validation that this work matters – all of that would have been wonderful.

But if we had won, would that have made the work complete? Job done? Box ticked? The honest answer is no. Job not done. Job not even close to being done. Because there are still so many gaps. So many people who can’t access provision. So many adults for whom even getting out of the house is impossible almost everyday. So many places where we still need to innovate, adapt, and keep going.

I started to realise that winning, for this project, isn’t a trophy or a photo on a stage. Winning is writing the next funding application. Winning is finding ways to run the project for longer. Winning is reaching more people, in different ways. Winning is continuing to build relationships across health, arts, and community. Winning is perhaps in what we do next?

When I think about whether Express Yourself was a success, my brain doesn’t go to the award ceremony first. It goes to the joy of sharing a dance together in our “Around the World in 80 Days” sessions. It goes to a participant telling us about a rare piece of sheet music they found in a tiny shop in Budapest, years ago, and the light in their eyes as they remembered. It goes to a “movie dance” session that turned into an in-depth conversation about CGI versus real life, and what feels “real” and what doesn’t. It goes to the moment someone, for whom social conversation is usually exhausting and anxiety-filled, said that in our sessions, talking and communicating felt fun again, especially while playing with Shakespearean text.

This is the stuff that doesn’t show up neatly on a funding form, but it’s where the magic sits. Tiny, human-scale victories: a joke shared. A memory unlocked. A body that moves a little more freely than last week. A voice that joins in where previously it stayed silent. Those moments stay with me much longer than the announcement of who won.

Another quiet “win” of this project was the people. At the ceremony I found myself sat next to an incredible woman I’d never have met if it wasn’t for Express Yourself. We swapped stories about what it’s like for her patients, the lack of provision, the invisible struggles. You realise quickly that behind every project title, Excellence in Rehabilitation, Innovation in Care, whatever the category, there are real people pushing against very real barriers, often quietly, and often for years.

This project also meant working more closely with Shakespeare Link, and becoming even closer to my friend Jacquie. Without this work, I might never have seen quite so clearly what a passionate dynamo she is, not just the wonderful creature I already knew, but someone utterly committed to making art and language accessible for people who are often overlooked. These relationships, to me, are also part of what it means to “win”. They change how we work. They change what feels possible.

For adults with neurological conditions, communication can be fraught. Words don’t always come easily. Social situations can be overwhelming. Leaving the house can be a major logistical and emotional effort. Express Yourself was about offering something different: a space where you don’t have to start with words. A space where movement, rhythm, gesture and story can do some of the talking for you. A space where you can reconnect with your own creativity and agency. A space where being in Powys doesn’t mean you miss out on rich, high-quality arts experiences.

We used theatre and dance as alternative routes into communication and connection, not as a replacement for traditional therapies, but as a powerful ally. For some participants, success looked like joining in a simple shared gesture. For others, it was contributing ideas to a scene, or staying longer in the room than they expected, or daring to say something out loud in front of other people. Those are not small things. Those are huge.

So… did we win?

On paper: no. We didn’t win the Excellence in Rehabilitation award. But if I step back and look at what happened, and people moved, laughed, created and connected in new ways. We’ve shifted how we think about what support and rehabilitation can look like in rural Powys. We’ve built new partnerships and friendships that will shape future projects. We’ve gathered evidence, stories and learning that we can now use to argue for more and better provision.

And most importantly, this is not the end of the story. If anything, being shortlisted has sharpened our resolve to keep going. Winning, for us, will be finding the funding to do this again, differently, better. It will be reaching people we haven’t met yet. It will be continuing to prove that arts, movement and creativity belong firmly in the conversation about healthcare and rehabilitation, not as a nice extra, but as something with real depth and impact.

So no, they didn’t read out our names that day in Cardiff. But when I think of the faces in the room, the journeys made to get there, the work represented, and the quiet revolutions happening in community halls, day centres and village rooms across Wales, it’s hard not to feel like, actually, in all the ways that matter, we did win.